


If I Fall, Can You Pull Me Up?

by Princessfbi



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Buckley Sibling Feelings, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz, Hostage Situation, Hurt Evan "Buck" Buckley, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of Blood, Protective Maddie Buckley, Stabbing, Worried Eddie Diaz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:41:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29856186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princessfbi/pseuds/Princessfbi
Summary: Eddie could pick Buck from a million miles away. Buck’s entire being was like one bright light in an otherwise cloudy sky. So, he was really interested to know why some stranger was wearing his boyfriend’s turnout coat and pretending to be him.“This is Captain Nash for Firefighter Buckley. Please report.”“Bobby,” Eddie said, already hurrying after the guy who was definitely not Buck. “Hey!”
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Maddie Buckley, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 704
Collections: 9-1-1 Tales





	If I Fall, Can You Pull Me Up?

Buck stopped. 

He didn’t know why he stopped. 

Why had he stopped?

 _Get in, do a sweep, and get out._ That’s what Bobby said. So, he didn’t know why he stopped. 

He didn’t know why the numbness that galloped across his back down to his toes was bleeding out into the floor with an edge. He didn’t know why it felt like the air had been punched out of him from a single blow to the gut. He didn’t know why the alarm that said _wrong wrong wrong_ was blazing in his head louder than any bell or siren ever could.

He didn’t know why. 

But he did know that the person on the ground in front of him was dead. 

“I’m sorry about this, kid.” 

The voice in his ear startled him and the pain that ricocheted from his stomach was agonizing. Gone was the numbness in a fallout cloud of absolute agony and Buck cried out as the movement shifted the tip of the knife in his gut. A hand slipped over his mouth as his legs gave out under him, a slow process of his hips buckling and his ankles collapsing out of their lock in a feeble attempt to keep him standing. He fell against a chest, warm and hard against his soft growing grasp of consciousness, like a mocking imitation of being cradled. 

The door slammed shut as he was dragged inside and the movement sent another rush of pure unfiltered pain that had Buck keening out a high pitched mewling sound muffled by the hand. 

_Get in, do a sweep, get out._

Bobby. He had to warn Bobby. Bobby would warn the others. 

Buck fumbled for his radio, stuck in the thickest, syrupy frozen race to clarity, but the hand over his mouth slipped away and slapped at his searching fingers. The hit undulated across his knuckles into his arm and down to his stomach where the knife still speared into him. The momentary lapse gave the man time enough to rip Buck’s radio away and it clattered into a jumble tangle of wires and parts too far for Buck to chase after. Somewhere in the slip, Buck’s helmet fell to the floor with a hollow rattle. He thought it might have been with the initial impact of the knife cutting through muscle and tendons but he couldn’t be sure. His grasp of anything sure was slipping away with the only consuming thought being Bobby’s orders ringing in his head.

_Get in, do a sweep, get out._

Get out. Get out. Get it out. _Get it out. Get it out!_

The hand curled back up over Buck’s mouth with hard fingers clamping over his lips and before Buck could even brace himself, the knife was ripped out of him with a cruel twist of the man’s wrist. Buck’s scream was muffled again but he could barely hear it beneath the rushing of white water rapids pulsing into his ears. He didn’t realize his body was plummeting the same way his heart was until he dropped from beneath the hand and landed in a heap. 

Buck’s body made a smack against the floor like a wad of spit hitting hot cement and the roaring rushing reared its ugly head again and flushed through Buck’s system only to drip down his side in a hot, thick stream of blood.

Blood.

There was so much of it. Hot and sticky on his skin and pooling beneath him onto his coat.

Buck yelped as he was flipped over onto his stomach and the pain pulsated like a tidal wave caving in on itself. Buck tried to curl into a ball, to protect his throbbing stomach and to get the pressure of his body weight off his wound, but a hand latched onto the back of his turnout pants and dragged him back. In a mess of limbs and whimpers, the man was ripping Buck’s coat from his shoulders before thick fingers were working on the clasp of his suspenders. Buck tried to swat him away, tried to push himself away, anything to get him to stop but a foot on his back left him fighting through the lightning bolts of agony that stole his vision, his breath, and his sense of anything that wasn’t pain _pain pain!_

“This is nothing personal,” the man said like it justified everything.

It felt kind of personal to Buck with the way he curled his fingers into the waistband of his turnout pants and yanked them past Buck’s hips and down his legs. The material bunched at Buck’s ankles and the man cursed as he ripped Buck’s boots off and tossed them to the side.

“Get-t _off!_ ”

Buck tried to kick out but the man grabbed his calf and _jerked_. Buck’s heart seized in his chest as the searing, throbbing rift in his stomach pulled along with it. Buck choked out a howl like a lone wolf dying in the woods, too weak to scream but too desperate not to try. He didn’t see the foot until it was too late and the toe of the boot was slamming into his side. His vision whited out and the lapse was all the man needed to rip the rest of his pants off him. Buck’s legs dropped to the ground with a crash and he shivered at the sudden exposure. Without his turnout gear he felt raw and naked with just his uniform pants and LAFD t-shirt.

The LAFD t-shirt that was quickly soaking through with his blood. Buck skimmed his hand over the obvious tear in the material, hoping that it was just a dream, but when he lifted his hand back his palm was caked in wet crimson.

_Put pressure on it! You have to put pressure on it or you’ll bleed out. Put pressure on it, Buck. Hard as you can!_

A voice in his head whispered like a ghost. A voice he couldn’t pinpoint but would know anywhere. Distantly, he heard the familiar jingling of his gear being clipped into place and Buck curled into himself again as he pushed his hand against the wound. Blood gushed from between his fingers and the shooting throb of the wound ripped another sob out of him before he could help it.

It hurt. God, it hurt.

There was too much blood. It was covering Buck’s hands and it hurt too much when he pushed down. The kind of hurt that sucked all the sound from your ears and all the light from your vision and left you vulnerable to the unknown because there was nothing you could do.

He needed to keep putting pressure on the wound but he couldn’t.

_Yes, you can, Buck! Yes, you can!_

Buck rolled until his forehead was against the floor and shook his head because he couldn’t. He couldn’t do it.

“Like I said,” the man said suddenly above him and Buck jumped. “Sorry about this, kid. It’s nothing personal.”

“Wha---” Buck yelped high in his throat as the man slipped his fists under Buck’s arms and hoisted him up with a bounce.

The pain turned up into a level of indescribably excruciating.

Buck thrashed and tried to fight if just to get a glimpse of relief as the man dragged him to where, Buck didn’t know, but it was all instinct at that point. Buck’s legs twisted under him as he tried to get away; tried to ease the pressure off the feeling of being torn apart but it wasn’t working. Nothing was working!

Buck couldn’t find the air to scream and his blood was making his hands slip. He clamped his hands down on the wound like it was the only thing keeping him from being split in two.

The man jolted him again with another bounce and the strangled cry fell from Buck’s lips in the midst of an objection. Buck heard a curse above him as the man slipped one arm across his chest and covered his mouth with his other hand again.

The smell of his own blood on the man’s fingers made the sting of bile pool into the back of his throat. Buck’s eyes watered as he tried to navigate keeping pressure on the wound and scratching the man’s hand away. 

Voices bellowing down the hallway mixed with the tinny sounds of a radio made the man stop.

_Scream, Buck! Scream!_

Buck tried to because that voice in his head was one he always trusted but the man clamped down on Buck’s mouth harder as if he could sense Buck trying to work the scream up his throat.

He shushed him.

“Don’t make me hurt anyone else, kid.”

Buck swallowed and tried to track the sounds of the voices over the wheezing sounds of his pants muffled by the man’s fingers.

His blood slid down his side like a caress and dropped onto the floor.

_Keep pressing on it, Buck! I know it hurts. Put a fist against it!_

Buck’s vision dimmed into speckled black spots as he curled his hand into a fist and pushed all he had into the wound.

At some point, the man started dragging him away again, keeping his head on a swivel and his hand clawed against Buck’s mouth until Buck was sure he would bruise.

Buck wasn’t clear on if the sound of another door clicking open was figment of his imagination or not but suddenly, he was falling into a heap on the floor. The impact onto the ground was worse the second time and Buck’s hand slipped away from his wound, spilling blood beneath him in a steady pool that stained his skin. His feet were kicked in until he curled his legs and then with a swinging of the door, Buck was lost into a sea of darkness.

* * *

That wasn’t Buck. 

There was every indicator that it should’ve been him. The height. The long legs hidden by the thick turnout pants. The gear over his shoulder. The helmet on his head with the numbers 118. The name on the back of the turnout coat.

Everything said that it should’ve been Buck. 

But it wasn’t. Eddie knew it like he knew his own name. That wasn’t Buck.

And if he needed any further proof, the unanswered calls from Bobby in the radio for Buck to report was enough.

“Firefighter Buckley, report.” Bobby tried again when Buck didn’t answer.

He must not have seen the imposter trying to sneak through the sea of turnout coats and business suits.

They’d been called to a sprawling multilevel office complex on the outskirts of Orange County for a pulled fire alarm. The building was emptying out as they drove up with people clutching their purses, laptops, and even a plant that was too big for the older woman carrying it. On the outside, it looked like it’d been a false alarm. No one was panicking, windows weren’t shattering with the heat, and the smell of smoke wasn’t even in the air. But for a building that size, it was still considered a second alarm response.

A hurried looking kitchen manager had met Bobby, frazzled and annoyed with sweat staining his shirt.

“It was just a small oven fire!” He’d said with a wave of his arms. “We put it out with the extinguisher.”

“Then why did you pull the fire alarm!” A man in a business suit that looked like he’d been woken up from a nap in his office butted in.

“We didn’t! The alarm went off before the fire even started!”

Which had been weird but not their priority at the time. Teams had been split up to sweep the building and Buck and a few others had been sent to hurry along any stranglers. Even if there wasn’t a fire, everyone had to exit the building for their own safety. That had been the last time Eddie had seen him.

Eddie could pick Buck from a million miles away. Buck’s entire being was like one bright light in an otherwise cloudy sky. So, he was really interested to know why some stranger was wearing his boyfriend’s turnout coat and pretending to be him.

“This is Captain Nash for Firefighter Buckley. Please report.”

“Bobby,” Eddie said, already hurrying after the guy who was definitely not Buck. “Hey!”

The guy wearing Buck’s coat must have realized he was caught because he started to run and Eddie was hot on his heels. By some luck, squad cars pulled into the parking lot and Not Buck faltered in his step. Eddie grabbed a fistful of Buck’s turnout coat but before he could even blink, he was swung around and pulled against the man’s chest as a bloody knife was pushed against his throat.

“Get back!” The man bellowed as the cops stumbled back and pulled out their weapons.

“Eddie!” That had to be Bobby but Eddie was too preoccupied with the blood caked knife in close connection with Buck’s turnout coat to notice.

Blood and blue tamper dye covered the man’s hands. Too much blood. It was stained in the man’s skin deeper than the dye itself and seeped in through the crevices and wrinkles in his skin. Eddie felt his stomach bottom out through his boots as he connected dots he didn’t want to be connecting. Buck’s turnout coat. Buck’s gear. Buck’s lack of response.

Buck’s blood.

“Get back! I swear I’ll kill him!” The man screamed into the absolute chaos around them.

“Put down the knife!”

“Everyone get back!”

Eddie nearly choked as the razor edge pushed against his windpipe but he kept his hands low and in front of him as the man spun them around in the tight circle of their eventual surrounding. Eddie watched as Bobby caught sight of the blood on the man’s hands. His eyes widened as his jaw went slack before his mouth pressed into a thin line.

“I said get back! I---”

Eddie didn’t wait. He snuck his hands up his chest before the man could see him and grabbed at the wrist and hand for a two on one point of contact. Eddie wrenched the hand with the knife down to give himself some space and jerked his shoulder beneath the weak point of the elbow. Tucking his chin, Eddie pivoted underneath the arm and backed out of his reach before the man could grab at him again.

It was over in a matter seconds but it was enough for Eddie to see that even more blood had smeared the lining of the turnout coat. Bobby was pulling him back just as the cops were putting themselves in between him and the man but all Eddie could see was the blood.

There was so much blood.

_Too much._

“Cap!” Eddie gasped out, his voice hoarse.

“Are you okay? Eddie!” Bobby’s hands were running up and down his throat and shoulders but Eddie couldn’t look away from the blood.

Buck… Buck wasn’t answering their calls and that guy had his coat and Buck---

“ _Eddie? Eddie!”_

Bobby physically shook clarity back into Eddie until he could feel his feet onto solid ground beneath him again. He could imagine his own face, slack in shock as his eyes watered while he continued to stare at the red stains. Eddie blinked and turned to Bobby.

“Cap,” Eddie said. “Buck---”

“I know,” Bobby said, his voice tight and stressed. “I know but are you hurt?”

And it felt like all that blood had come out of Eddie’s own body as the flashes of possibilities clicked like a shutter against his mind. That was too much blood.

_Way too much blood!_

The popping of glass was the last thing anyone needed in those few tense moments and someone shrieked as plumes of smoke billowed out of one of the office buildings.

 _“Fire!”_ Someone screamed as another series of outdated windows shattered with the heat of the licking flames crawling up the side of the building.

* * *

“Buck! Wake up!”

Buck would know that voice anywhere. It was the one that soothed all the hurt, all the pain, all the deep feelings he didn’t understand when his mom would look at him that way; that expression of resentment and betrayal swallowed back behind a mask of indifference. The voice he latched onto through the tears and the fear and all the ugly feelings in between.

But that voice didn’t call him Buck. That voice didn’t know Buck then. Buck didn’t even know Buck then.

“ _Evan!”_

That was better. That made sense.

“You have to wake up now, Evan. Wake up!”

Buck groaned as he curled inward, tucking his arms to his chest and pulling his knees up like he used to do; pretending he was too small for her to see.

His fingers slipped against something wet.

The pain reappeared like a camera flash across his vision in the too dark room that smelled of smoke and blood. It stunned him nearly back into oblivion and Buck shuddered through his slippery grasp of lucidity.

_“I’m sorry about this, kid.”_

The fear licked hot at his spine and Buck flinched back into a ball.

“Maddie?” He cried because she’d been there a moment ago.

She’d always been there when he was hurt and scared and alone.

“I’m here, Evan,” she said, her voice young but deeply wise for someone her age.

Maddie always seemed so grown up then. Protective and fireproof like a knight or a superhero. But instead of a cape, Maddie had long brown hair that she tucked behind her ears and the oversized chunky knit sweaters were mint green instead of steel armor. 

Buck felt like Maddie when he put on his turnout coat for the first time; strong and fireproof too.

His coat… Where had his coat gone?

“He took it,” Maddie said as she knelt down beside him. 

“Maddie?”

Maddie tucked her hair behind her ear and nodded.

“I’m here, Evan. I’m here.”

He could remember the weight of her small hand against his face, her thumb at the starting point of his birthmark before pushing in comfort down the slope of his brow.

Buck had _missed_ her so much it hurt.

“I know,” Maddie said as if she could hear him.

Maybe she could. This Maddie was the Maddie that Buck thought had superpowers.

Buck sucked in a shaky inhale and flinched as the quivering made his stomach feel like it was being ripped apart again. Hot blood gushed around him and Buck drifted a hand up against the searing skin that was cold beneath his fingertips.

It hurt… It _hurt!_

“ _Maddie.”_ Buck bit out as he whined deep in his throat wishing she could make it better.

“Listen to me, Evan,” Maddie said. “You have to keep pressing down on the wound.”

Buck pressed his head into the floor and shook it. He couldn’t. He couldn’t do it.

“Yes, you can!” Maddie insisted, sounding different after being away for so long but still the same Maddie he knew he could run to when he needed someone to see him for once.

The Maddie that was a phone call away. 

She sounded older and a little bitter but still Maddie. Still his Maddie. The Maddie who reached out and grabbed him when he was spinning out of control like the wheel of his motorcycle trashed across the street.

“You have to put pressure on the wound. You can do it. I know you can.”

He could remember the weight of her hand too. Soft from lotion but calloused at the pads of her finger tips.

Buck groaned as he pushed his hand against the gaping hole in his stomach and cried out at the way the weight of his hand felt nothing like hers. He could feel his pulse beating against his palm and it was too much and too painful and---

“ _Don’t!”_ Maddie instructed. “Don’t take your hand off, Evan! You have to keep pushing down on it. I know it hurts but you have to keep the pressure on it!”

Buck dropped his head back onto the floor and sobbed as he pushed his hand harder onto his stomach.

“Good, Evan! Good job! I know it hurts. I know but you’re being so brave. You’re always so brave.”

Maddie was the only one who thought that. Maddie was the only one who ever thought he was brave. Maddie was the only one who ever thought he was anything at all.

“That’s not true.”

It was. 

“No, it’s not! You are so brave. The bravest little man I’ve ever met. Everyone thinks you’re so brave. Bobby, Eddie, Chim, Hen, Athena. They all think so.” 

Buck felt his lip wobble as he sucked in a breath because he wished he could be brave like her. Where was his coat? He could be brave with his coat but without it he was—

_It’s not a costume. It’s who you are._

_Don’t make me hurt anyone else, kid._

The knife. Buck had to warn the others. He took his coat. He had a knife and he took Buck’s coat.

“They’re looking for you.” 

There was smoke again. Buck could smell the smoke like it scorched into his nose and singed at his senses. 

“He set something on fire. But they’re looking for you. You have to help them find you, Buck.”

But he was so cold. If there was a fire, why was he so cold? 

“Because you’re in shock.”

Oh. That wasn’t good. 

Maddie scoffed. “It’s not great but it’s going to be okay. You’re going to get out of here.”

Eddie would be looking for him. 

“That’s right. Eddie’s looking for you.”

Eddie would always look for him. 

“Because he loves you. But you have to help him.” Maddie’s voice changed again, back into that sweet know it all tilt of a preteen that helped him learn how to ride a bike when he was five without the training wheels. 

_Buckleys for the win!_

That Maddie would’ve had a crush on Eddie the moment she saw him. Not that Buck would’ve blamed her. His boyfriend was pretty hot.

“You have to help Eddie find you.”

Eddie would be looking for him. But the vacuum of darkness was suffocating and made Buck feel small. Too small to do anything right. Too small. Not enough. Splintered pieces at the bottom of a barrel like the shattered glass of the lights from the truck on concrete.

Alone and broken. He didn’t even know where to begin.

“I can’t.” He confessed.

Maddie’s face hovered over his in the darkness and he could swear he felt the wisps of her chestnut brown hair against his cheek as plumes of her coconut shampoo soothed away the charcoal smell. Her expression was pointed with a fierceness sharp in the soft slopes of her face that he recognized from when she’d told off a bully at school who made fun of his birthmark and pouty lips he hadn’t grown into yet.

“Yes, you can. I’m right here. There’s nothing to be scared about.”

Buck was never scared when he was with Maddie. He was just scared of the times when he would be without her. 

“I’m right here. But you have to help Eddie.”

Eddie. Eddie was in the smoke looking for him. Eddie was out there while someone was pretending to be Buck with Buck’s turnout coat and Buck’s name.

_Don’t make me hurt anyone else, kid._

He couldn’t let him get to Eddie. Not when the memory of the knife slicing though his stomach pierced into his mind like the point of impact. Buck gritted his teeth and curled his hand into a fist so he could push down harder on the wound. It hurt but the idea of Eddie being lost in the smoke hurt more.

“How?” Buck asked when Maddie sat back on her heels.

She looked over her shoulder. “You have to get to the door.”

But from where Buck was on the floor, the handle was a million miles away. He’d never make it.

“I can’t...” Buck lamented before he even tried.

He’d never make it. It was too far.

“Yes, you can.” Maddie insisted but Buck was having trouble seeing her as his vision darkened again.

“I’m so tired, Mads.”

That was from the blood loss, Buck knew, but it didn’t make it any less true. His eyes felt too heavy in his head and the chill that set over him was starting to creep away as the smothering warmth took over in the air. Thick, smoggy air.

Right. There’d been smoke.

Buck rolled his head to the side because keeping it skyward was too hard. His jaw settled on his shoulder as he stared at a mop and broom that looked like they hadn’t been used since the 80s and were covered in cobwebs and specks of hard crusted crumbs.

Where had his coat gone?

“ _Don’t go to sleep, Buck!”_

But why couldn’t he? He was so tired of fighting all the time. Nothing was ever easy. Nothing was ever what it was supposed to be. 

“The hardest things are worth fighting for, Buck. You. You’re worth fighting for.”

Buck didn’t know if he believed that. He wanted to because Maddie said so but it was hard. It’d always been hard. When you get told over and over again that all you were worthy of was being ignored, you couldn’t help but start to believe it.

And sometimes being ignored was easier. Being ignored was easier than facing the fact that Buck was never going to be someone worth fighting for. At least, until he met Eddie.

“Eddie’s fighting for you but you have to help him. He can’t find you in here,” Maddie said as she laid down on the floor beside him.

Her sweater was going to get blood on it.

Maddie used to seem so big back then. Buck used to think that she could’ve been able to reach up and grab a cloud for him if he’d asked. But beside him, she was so small.

Even as an adult and a different Maddie from the one of his memories, she was so small.

“We never give up, Buck. Okay? You and me, we never give up. You and me in the world, remember? I can’t do that if you die here. Come on. Get up. You can do it. You’re so brave. You can do it.” 

Buck could never find it in his heart to deny Maddie anything. Buck pushed down on his wound again and curled his fingers into a fist until his entire torso felt like it was being stabbed all over again. Buck gritted his teeth and rolled until he was on his side. The floor beneath him felt like it shook so hard that his teeth rattled but that could’ve been his heart lurching in the turn.

“You can do it, Buck. You can do it.”

“I’m doing it.” Buck bit out, squeezing his eyes closed as a few tears leaked out from the pain.

Buck shoved his other fist against the floor but his knuckles slipped against the puddle of blood. He fell into a free fall of oblivion. His body seized with pain but Buck forced himself to suck in another thin, painful smoke filled breath and leaned into the intensity to stay awake.

He had to help Eddie find him. Eddie would be looking for him.

Maddie thought he could do it so Buck had to try.

“That’s it, Buck! You can do this.”

Buck pushed his fist against the floor again and turned all his weight into his locked elbow. The rest of him felt like jelly but his elbow was sturdy.

“Come on, Buck! Come on! You can do it!”

Buck shoved out a sob as he lifted himself all the way up into a slump that was vertical instead of horizontal. The hot blood against his cold hand sent goosebumps across his skin. He wished Maddie would hold his hand. Maybe then he wouldn’t feel so disconnected; so alone.

“You aren’t alone, Buck,” Maddie said from somewhere beside him. “Eddie’s looking for you.”

Eddie was looking for him. The man had his coat and a knife. Eddie was looking for him. He had to move. He had to help him.

Buck reached for the door handle but his fingers merely grazed the curved knob before his arm fell to the side. The sturdiness of the door shuddered against the weight of his body as Buck’s cheek smacked against it.

“You’re so close. You can do this! You’re so, so close. Just grab the door handle and pull.”

Buck rocked through another wave of pain and hissed as it rippled from his stomach all the way to the crown of his head. He was so cold but it was getting hot too, unbearably so. Everything hurt but the numbness was trickling in back in with the chill of shock.

He was so alone.

“No, you’re not Buck.”

He wasn’t. Maddie was there. Eddie was somewhere. Buck was on the precipice of in between there and somewhere.

Buck sucked in another breath and reached up for the door handle again.

The handle pulled down beneath his hand as the door swung open and Buck was in free fall all over again.

* * *

Bobby didn’t want Eddie going in but Eddie was already gearing up and marching into the building for anyone could stop him. Bobby was hot on his heels as they navigated through the polluted smoke filled air in the maze of hallways.

“Buck!” Eddie and Bobby called through the filters of their masks only for Buck’s name to get lost in smoldering inferno the bastard that had stolen his coat had left him in.

But then Eddie saw him. 

Face down.

Halfway out of a doorway.

In a pool of blood. 

“Cap! I got him!” It took every inch of Eddie’s self-restraint to keep from running. The fire was the most intense in the office next to the closet as flames licked up the walls and ceilings. 

Eddie hurried around to put himself between the curious, growing flames and Buck. He doused them with a spray of his extinguisher. 

“Buck!” He heard Bobby come up behind him and heard the even worse wet sound of Buck being turned over. 

Eddie shook as he focused on fighting back the flames, too scared to know what that blood meant; too much on edge to look and confirm what Buck not moving implied. 

“He’s alive!” Eddie would’ve dropped in relief if he could’ve let his knees buckle beneath him. 

Instead, he gave one last relentless push at the fire before he dropped his empty extinguisher and turned around.

“Chimney! Hen!” Bobby called into his radio. “We found him but he’s in rough shape.”

“Copy that, Cap. What’s his condition?”

Eddie swore as he dropped to his knees. The knife wound was obvious and the front of his shirt and hands were covered in blood. Streaks of it caked the side of his face as if he’d rubbed his face or tears with his coated fingers. He was pale from blood loss and cold to the touch but he was breathing and that’s all Eddie could ask for.

“He’s alive but has a stab wound to the abdomen.”

Buck had a fist shoved down on his wound even in unconsciousness and Eddie gently pushed away his hand to press down himself.

Eddie never wanted to hear the weak keening sound that whimpered past Buck’s lips ever again but, in that moment, it was music to his ears.

Bleary, blue eyes sneaked open beneath long blond eyelashes in slits.

“Buck?” Eddie rubbed a hand hard against Buck’s sternum until those slits turned into something a little wider and a little more awake.

“-‘d-die?”

Buck’s head lulled to the side before a vicious cough ripped through his throat as the density of the smoke finally got to him. Eddie would’ve ripped off his own mask if Bobby hadn’t already beat him to it. Buck’s face disappeared in the depths of Bobby’s mask giving Eddie a full glimpse of Bobby’s stricken expression.

“We’re bringing a stretcher to you, Cap!” Even Chimney’s voice over the radio sounded rushed as if he could sense the severity all the way outside.

Eddie looked down at the pool of blood imprinted on the floor like a horror angel in the snow. Finger tracks smeared on the door where Buck had clawed his way up the handle and even more painted the floor of the smallest closet Eddie had ever seen. He didn’t even know how the guy had managed to stuff Buck inside.

Bobby met Eddie’s gaze with a firm tight line across his lips.

Eddie shook his head.

Buck didn’t have that much time.

“We’re bringing him out to you. Have the ambulance prepped and ready!”

“Copy that, Cap!”

Bobby let Buck take another series of breaths before he reluctantly pulled his mask away. Buck’s eyes rolled as his eyelashes fluttered against too pale skin.

“Buck,” Bobby said, leaning over so he could meet Buck’s gaze. “Buck, Eddie and I are going to carry you out of here but it’s going to hurt.”

Buck sucked in a sharp gasp as he preemptively flinched and Eddie pushed a gloved hand through his hair.

“We’ll go quick, Buck,” Eddie said. “You just have to stay awake.”

“I can’t,” Buck whispered, sounding scared and tired.

So tired like Buck was barely hanging on by his fingertips.

“Yes, you can!” Eddie pressed with a hard rub of his knuckles when Buck started to fade. “I’m right here. There’s nothing to be scared about.”

A strange look passed over Buck’s face as something raw and vulnerable clouded his eyes.

Buck bit his lip and nodded.

The sound Buck made as Bobby and Eddie helped him into a seated position ripped through Eddie like a bolt of lightning through his heart. Buck gasped out a cry as he doubled over but they didn’t have time to waste as the fire grew impatient and roared to life again. Bobby and Eddie slipped Buck’s arms around their necks and linked their arms behind Buck’s back. Buck listed against them as the pain shuddered through his body. Bobby and Eddie locked arms beneath Buck’s knees and counted.

“Three… two… one.”

Buck bit his lip as a shredded groan followed them all the way off the floor. His head sagged back exposing the long pale column of his throat but he was blinking in a desperate attempt to stay awake.

“Stay with us, Buck! Stay with us!”

Bobby and Eddie moved in tandem as they carried Buck away from the fire but even when they got outside the smell of acidic smoke mixed with the heavy copper of Buck’s blood lingered in Eddie’s nose until he felt like something sour and bitter climbed at the back of his throat.

Chim and Hen met them with a gurney, their faces horrified beneath a mask of professional expression as they helped Bobby and Eddie put him on a stretcher. Even in the sunlight, Buck was colorless and his too blue, too glassy eyes were sunken in and shadowed. But the ruby red of his blood was brighter and more intense.

As soon as Buck’s back hit the stretcher, he curled inward and shoved a hand back over his wound with a sob.

“It’s okay, Buckaroo,” Hen said, trying to sooth away the pain while coaxing Buck to unclench enough for her to see. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Eddie couldn’t tear his gear off fast enough. As soon as his tank dropped to the cement with a hollow thud, Eddie was crossing the distance running his hands through Buck’s hair with shaky fingers that were giving in to the adrenaline.

Chim and Hen were trying to be gentle as they bullied Buck onto his back but he still practically wailed as they probed his stab wound.

“There’s a lot of damage in here.” Chimney cursed as he tried to pack the wound. “I can’t see. We have to get him moving!”

Eddie leaned down to press a kiss against Buck’s forehead, whispering words of reassurances as Buck gasped through the confusion of blood loss and shock. Hen kicked off the lock on the wheels and Buck was moving as fast as they could push him.

Buck’s hand latched onto Eddie’s, curling blood soaked fingers with a strength only Buck could possess when he was bleeding out and feeling stubborn.

“M-Maddie?” Buck asked, his eyes searching before they pinched in confusion. “Maddie!”

“I’ll call her, Buck. I’ll call her!” Eddie promised as Buck was lifted into the ambulance and their hands were forced apart.

The ambulance doors shutting in his face thudded against Eddie’s heart like a hammer to the chest.

It was supposed to be a boring call.

How had everything gone from boring to Buck nearly bleeding out in less than an hour!

“How’s he doing?” Athena asked as she rushed through the crowd to meet Bobby.

Eddie was stuck rooted in the same spot he’d been to even register that her cruiser had pulled up at the scene.

“He’s alive but it was…” Bobby trailed off. “Any idea why this happened?”

Bobby’s hand was sturdy over Eddie’s shoulder but Eddie was still stuck as the panic and anxiety crashed in waves at his feet like slush that threatened to take him out at the knees.

Athena’s brows arched up high on her forehead as she shook her head.

“Not much. From what we can gather, he had a disagreement with his divorce attorney and it got violent. When he realized he’d killed her, he panicked and pulled the fire alarm hoping to steal a uniform and make his escape. He took Buck’s clothes and then set the office on fire to hide the evidence.”

Eddie turned to her as Bobby settled back on his heels, stunned.

“So, Buck was just in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

Athena pressed her lips together and nodded.

“Come on you two,” she said with a tilt of her head. “Let me take your statements so we can get you two to the hospital.”

* * *

When Buck woke up to the feeling of pain killers making everything woozy and soft, it was to the site of Eddie passed out across two plastic hospital chairs in an LAFD hoodie Buck was pretty sure was his. He must have been okay if they let Eddie stay with him well into the night if the darkness through the window and dim light of the hall was any indication. They usually didn’t let anyone back for long if it was too bad.

Eddie’s hair was soft in thick tuft on his head like he’d showered and fallen asleep with his head back when his hair was still wet. 

He probably had if the memory of Eddie’s hand covered in Buck’s blood was right. 

Blood. 

Buck grimaced at the phantom knife punching into his stomach. At the whispers of a hand against his mouth. At the haunting of his turnout coat being ripped from his shoulders. At the ghosts of the darkness that felt like it was going to consume him. 

It flooded back to him slowly and sluggishly but the ache of missing something settled over him like a heavy blanket he couldn’t shake off. The voice that kept telling him to keep going; to keep fighting.

A dream or a memory, he wasn’t sure.

The faint wisps of coconut shampoo perfumed against the sterile plastic clean smell of the hospital and for a moment Buck thought that was a dream too. 

Something shifted to his right and he rolled his head to see. A crown of brown curls was pressed against his bedside.

Maddie. 

He would know his sister anywhere.

Maddie was lost in sleep curled up on the recliner beside his bed but her body was arched over the chasm of space between them like she wanted to feel every twitch, every inhale through the bed.

Her hand was pressed into the mattress and so close Buck could feel her warmth.

Hospitals always made him feel cold and small but with Eddie and Maddie bracketing him it was hard to feel lost. It took more energy than he would’ve liked to move his hand but he managed all the same until her fingers were in reach.

He latched his pinky around hers just to check that she was real.

Maddie’s pinky curled onto his as she sighed in her sleep, stretching into wakefulness with a few blinks before she turned her head.

“Hey,” she whispered with a smile that flickered with worry but kept her face bright all the same.

Maddie closed the distance between them easily and sat on the bed with more grace than Buck could have ever possessed even if he tried. And he tried.

He always tried to be like Maddie growing up. Strong, brave, fireproof.

“Maddie?” He asked, blinking up at her as she settled into his vision.

“Hi.” Maddie reached up a hand to cup his cheek and pressed her thumb at the starting point of his birthmark in her gentle caress. “How are you feeling?”

"Better," Buck answered honestly.

Maddie peered over her shoulder as Eddie let out a little whistling snore. 

"He found you," Maddie said. "They said if you hadn't fought your way out of the closet, it would've been too late."

Her words shook a little beneath her soothing tones and Buck pushed against the feeling of her palm. 

He spied Eddie sprawled with his legs up in a chair. Eddie would always look for him. He just had to help him a little. 

_We never give up, Buck. Okay? You and me, we never give up._

“I didn’t give up,” Buck said, his voice cracking as he leaned into her hand and clutched at her pinky finger like it was his only thread to the light.

Maddie’s nose scrunched in confusion but her smile was still there was she curled her fingers to brush through his hair.

“No, Buck,” Maddie said with a nod. “You didn’t give up. You never give up.”

And he never would. Not when Maddie was there to keep pushing him forward.


End file.
